I’ve finally gotten around to messing with Arduino, and it’s been a lot of fun! I picked up an “Experimentation Kit” from Adafruit and it contained everything I needed to get started, including a little booklet of circuit examples.
I don’t know that I’ve gained any programming insight from my experimentations, but I’d wager most developers would enjoy this sort of thing. It could make an excellent Christmas gift for that hard-to-buy-for geek in your family!